<p>I could see myself letting a kid back out after a big fight 4 days later. I think it is easy to be manipulated by a good manipulator into believing that they are very sorry and will never let it happen again and if you believed me you would let me go and dog sit for the neighbors while they are away etc etc. It is hard to come to terms with the knowledge that one’s kid is looking you straight in the eye and lying. </p>
<p>My aunt could have written your post 30 years ago and the problems turned out to include alcohol and drugs.</p>
<p>I think it would be easy to say–she is ok with doing a drug test, so it must not be drugs and therefore we will not bother to do a drug test. Manipulation again. Definitely do a drug test with someone watching the urine go into the collection vial.</p>
<p>Because hardly anyone else is doing it – I want to vote with anxiousmom. Yes, there may be a more serious problem here. Worth looking out for. But there also may only be the age-old problem of an 18 year-old girl who likes sex and drinking, and parents who wish she didn’t. Crude humor on Facebook, parties with alcohol, sneaking the boyfriend into her bedroom – none of that, to me, says there is a horrible problem other than growing pains.</p>
<p>I would like to suggest to the OP that one option here – while remaining vigilant for things like signs of a serious drug problem – is simply to take the view that you have done all you can as parents, and now is the time to hold your breath and cover your eyes a bit, and wait for the daughter you raised to emerge from this likely very temporary transitional phase. And, to me, that would sound like a more attractive course of action than turning everyone’s life upside down because you have pushed the panic button.</p>
<p>I think it shows that people care, Shrinkrap. And even if it sounds like people are screaming and shouting at the OP, a lot of us are saying – we learned this the hard way, just like you. We care a lot that wonderful kids of wonderful parents are going through a horrible phase. This is the village that is helping to raise the kid, or at least we hope it helps.</p>
<p>I have a friend whose D was very much like the OP’s. It was not a matter of temporary adolescent rebellion or inadequate parenting. I can’t relate the details here, for reasons of confidentiality. If I did, it would sound like fiction.</p>
<p>Suffice it to say, I think that aggressively pursuing therapy is the best approach to take now.</p>
<p>JHS, your post mirrors son’s thoughts. He thinks she was punished for each incident last year (and bore the recent month of being grounded well) and that the Facebook thing is an over-reaction. To us, the Facebook lack of propriety is but one more incident of impropriety that opens the door back to the long hard year of last year.
Interestingly, when we were reading the posts this morning as a family, D pointed to anxiousmom’s post as her favorite. I told her that it too, comforted me because the long picture is what matters to me. I want to be close to D when she is 30 and I want her to be strong and emotionally sound. Her character is very important to me.
Thank you all for your “it takes a village” philosophy.</p>
<p>gomom: I’m sorry for what you are going through. I have also faced some “tawdry” behavior from my D and have agonized over what I did wrong as a mom that I didn’t head that off. There is a lot of that sort of stuff these days and some of what you are seeing is probably just trying to fit in. </p>
<p>I think that the family counseling will help a lot, and you will have a much better grip on the whole scene after a few sessions. As JHS pointed out in post 82, the things your D has done so far are very disappointing and shocking to you as a parent and with your value system, but they aren’t that far out in terms of all the things today’s teens get up to. If your D is still a stellar student and doing well at school, then she is still interested in the values with which you raised her, or she would quit working at school and be acting out there as well.</p>
<p>I wanted to share this from my own family. My oldest stepson, now age 28, was a nightmare when he was 18-21. He moved in with us because his mom was tired of dealing with him. He abused prescription drugs for ADHD that he was prescribed by a notorious dr. in our town who passed them out to anyone at huge doses. My H was in complete denial. It was almost the end of our marriage. I finally went to a psychiatrist who referred us to another psychiatrist who had a lot of experience with drug users andwith young men in prisons. Several sessions with that psych. turned my stepson around. The psych. just flat out called him on his drug use and told him he would ruin his life and end up in jail or dead. Stepson got a job, moved out, got off the drugs, and then joined the Navy. </p>
<p>He is now married to a lovely, sweet woman with a serious medical condition, and has taken care of her though major surgery all by himself. He’s still in the Navy. He does triathlons and runs every day. He has apologized many times for his poor behavior and all he put us through. </p>
<p>I just thought this might give you a little bit of cheer here, that even when you think this child will never be right again, there is still hope. The basic person is still in there, and people do change and improve as they grow up.</p>
<p>I seriously wish that CF’s post, or something like it, was at the top of the parent cafe page or at the beginning of threads like this. Well said.</p>
<p>That is CardinalFang in post 46, for those who need a reference. I agree with mimk6; it’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Much, much harder to call the plays and run them successfully, doing the best for everyone on the team.</p>
<p>This is sort of embarrassing for me, but I wanted to give you advice from the POV of a young person. I exhibited many crazy risk-taking behaviours when younger, and it was because I was severely depressed to the point of near-delusion and suicidal. I needed counseling and medication (and in my case, separation from abusive family – though most kids like me don’t necessarily have abusive families, so I’m not trying to say you’ve been a bad parent!) </p>
<p>I can’t fathom that your daughter is not either an addict or severely mentally ill to a life-threatening degree. She needs you to give up a lot and do hard, difficult, possibly expensive things right now.</p>
<p>JHS, you may be right that this is nothing more than typical teenage rebellion recounted by a mother who is over-reacting. But it may not be. We have all seen our share of wild teens, some of whom were just wild and others that were out of control. Without knowing this girl, I think we have to trust the palpable alarm of the OP. If she is distressed at the pattern her D has exhibited, then we must assume that her D is indeed out of control. </p>
<p>What we can’t know is the cause – drug or alcohol abuse, depression, peer pressure, or something darker and unspeakable that has happened. That’s for a good therapist to bring out.</p>
<p>To the OP: be advised that not all therapists are effective. You might have to try a few before you settle on one who helps.</p>
<p>“Crude humor on Facebook, parties with alcohol, sneaking the boyfriend into her bedroom – none of that, to me, says there is a horrible problem other than growing pains.”</p>
<p>I agree to all this. But physically fighting her parents to get out at night, and particularly using the cat-sitting access to throw a party in the unsuspecting neighbor’s house, DO worry me as possible examples of a negative change in character.</p>
<p>There was no tone in my typing, although I was surprised that she has a housekeeper when she said that she couldn’t afford counseling earlier on.</p>
<p>Hanna (and others): I agree that there are some disturbing things here. The physical fighting being #1. And I agree that all these things could be happening, and there could be a really serious problem. I don’t want to pooh-pooh that possibility completely.</p>
<p>But I am a looooong way from convinced by the OP’s sense that her daughter has descended into some kind of madness, because most of the evidence is evidence of nothing. I am practically the only person I know who didn’t have serious conflict with my parents over issues like this when I was 17, and believe me if my parents had wanted to have serious conflict there were plenty of things they could have chosen. Practically everyone I knew did stuff like this (NOT a physical tussle with their parents, but everything else). And the ratio of people who had serious, long-term problems to those who didn’t was about 1:20.</p>
<p>(I had a funny experience a few years ago. A young cousin of mine was being suspended from his boarding school for a week for various infractions, and because we were the nearest relatives he was being sent to us. I called the school to find out just what the awful behaviors were, and what disciplinary regime was appropriate. It turned out that the person imposing the discipline was someone I had known almost all his life – a classmate of my sister, and the younger brother of a one-time girlfriend. We both had a laugh over the list of my cousin’s infractions, because we both knew each of us had done far worse, repeatedly, without getting so much as a wrist-slap. My friend told me to have my cousin keep his head down a little, and the current zero-tolerance policy would pass. Anyway – I am fine, my cousin was and is fine, and my friend is now head of a school and significantly less inclined to suspend students than the man he was working under at the time.)</p>
<p>Physicsmom (#89) knows what she is talking about. I say this, not solely because of the supporting evidence she cites, but from my own experience that of family members.</p>
<p>We cannot diagnose the OP’s daughter from afar. But we do know that many issues can manifest themselves at this point in a young woman’s life. The time and expense required to pursue these possible causes may seem daunting, but the investment can pay enormous dividends in wellness and will be much smaller than that required if the disorder persists.</p>
<p>Make sure that that the drug test kit you buy tests for a number of different drugs. You don’t want one that just tests for pot.
I have 2 friends both whose D’s had issues with their weight. Both had eating issues. One had been in an inpatient treatment center for bulimia. Both ended up with big cocaine addictions. One of them is off cocaine but still is strongly attached to her Adderal.</p>
<p>Gourmetmom, I understand what you are saying. But I will posit that a many-year-old, ongoing expense (even one most of us don’t have) can seem fundamental until one is shaken up. Add to that the notion that the long-term housekeeper’s livelihood is involved. It seems that our input has helped the OP to see that the need for psychological support is important. Good for her for acknowledging the realization and making the change.</p>
<p>This sounds almost exactly like my daughter who was raped as a junior…and we did not know. She then fell into an eating disorder…at which point she became totally out of control. Had we known half of what was going on, but we just thought she was defiant.
Is she very thin? Eating disorders are rampant and can create all kinds of insanity. Thankfully, with a couple of years of treatment/therapy and ADHD medication, she is the 4.0 student, working and behaving normally again. Good luck. My heart is with you. This may not just be defiance and other parents need to get a clue.</p>
<p>My daughter has a girlfriend - a HS senior, very bubbly, outgoing, good student - all in all, my impression is that she is a nice, well adjusted girl. A few months ago, I dropped my daughter off at her house and the girl’s mother invited me in for a glass of wine, saying “I need to talk to you about something.” The mother was very upset that her daughter had lied to her - she made it sound like the girl was living a secret life. The girl apparently went out with a boy while her parents were away and lied about it. The mother made it sound like they spent the night together. Now, the girl wanted to date a different even more “inappropriate” boy. The comments were more or less about wild behavior and lies to cover up the behavior. The mother had decided to come down very hard on the daughter, who prior to this had what I would consider a great deal of freedom. She wanted me know all of this because she wasn’t going to allow her daughter to go to an upcoming school dance (all of the girls planned to get ready at my house).</p>
<p>Later, I asked my daughter (who is very plain spoken) about the girl. She said that the mother is a “whack job” and the girl is perfectly fine. She said that the mother will go weeks or longer barely asking her daughter about anything, then she’ll find out something innocuous and fly off the handle and send her daughter into lock down mode. The daughter keeps things from her because her mother is unstable. My daughter has met the boy in question and she says that he is very nice and anyone would be comfortable having him meet their parents.</p>
<p>My impression is that the daughter is a good kid and the mother has problems. So, there are always two sides to every story. Something about the OPs postings seem off to me.</p>
<p>Well, nothing about the OP’s posts seems off to me at all. To me it sounds like a parent who is asking for help and is frantic to help her child.</p>